Bond cleavage for converting long chain hydrocarbons to short chain unsaturated hydrocarbons is important in the commodity chemicals industry. Methods for the direct cleavage of alkane carbon--carbon bonds in organic molecules are used for both commodity chemicals and fuels and for selective synthesis of specialty chemicals. Useful chemicals include .alpha.-olefins, lower molecular weight hydrocarbons with olefin sites, isomers of saturated and partially unsaturated hydrocarbons, ring contracted cyclic hydrocarbon, olefinic monomers such as methyl acrylate, ethylene, propylene, butene, and combinations thereof. Present conversion methods, including multi-step synthetic methods, require heat and pressure.
There has been a long felt need in the art of thermal liquid phase hydrocarbon conversions for methods capable of operating at reduced temperature and pressure.